In my spiritual tradition, following the church calendar means celebrating Easter, Palm Sunday, Christmas, and maybe the season of Advent. The denomination my husband and I are currently a part of and what I grew up in is charismatic and has almost shunned the use of ritual and rhythms of spirituality in the name of avoiding all possibilities of legalism. I agree, of course, that we should avoid legalism since it was that through the Pharisees and Sadusees that Jesus so forcefully condemned, however, (and this is a whole other topic for another day) I do believe that spiritual routines and traditions that have been part of Christianity for centuries can be very beneficial in our relationships with Christ.
That being said, I have been following snippets of the traditional Church calendar since high school (my whole life if you count advent). My youth pastor introduced our rag tag group of international students to the season of Lent with a seven-week-long challenge. I loved it. I had a lot of hesitation at first, but, especially with my recent interest in liturgical prayers and other older traditions, I am fully for the idea of following the seasons of the church to help align our hearts and minds on things of God.
Over the course of this year, starting now with the season of Lent, I, a protestant, charismatic, evangelical Christian, will be exploring the traditions and seasons of the Church and telling all of you my thoughts, struggles, and anything else that might arise. I’m also interested in the history of many of these holy days and feasts and such because it’s not like Christ in the New Testament dictated the following of specific days.
Before we get into it, I want to clarify that salvation of our souls is found in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This means accepting that he is the son of God, that he was faultless, and that he died as the perfect replacement for our failures. God is just and therefore cannot stand evil, however, he provided his son to take our place in punishment because He loves us and wants to be in relationship with us. That is the reason he made us. If you have other questions please do not hesitate to contact me at observationsofanoel@gmail.com. I say this because many groups believe there are specific rites and duties that are required for salvation. I do not believe that following the traditional Church calendar is necessary for my salvation. I commune with God through prayer, worship, and reading scripture. Now that all of that is settled, let’s begin.
Lent: the Path to the Cross
My initial exposure to Lent was in my youth group. After introducing us to liturgical prayers a couple months before, our pastor presented us with a Lent devotional guide which included liturgies, scripture reading, and challenges for what we could give up/fast from, and what we could give to others. I learned the basics of the season through that: pray, read, fast, and give. Different traditions use different words for these aspects but they are the same concept. Catholics, from my understanding also include penitence in their observing but I feel like that is too close to working for our salvation.
Every year, I choose what I will give up for the season. In fasting or giving something up, we are joining in the experience of Jesus when he spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness before he began his public ministry (Matthew 4, Luke 4). Usually I give up something that is a crutch or an addiction in my life or something that distracts me from my relationship with God. This year, my husband and I are both fasting from most social media and eating out/getting fast food. Neither of these things are sins or wrong by themselves but we have begun to rely on them more than we think is healthy. I have also decided to give up meat for the 40 days of Lent because I have developed an emotional relationship with food and need to bump the importance of it back down in my life.
Before I jump into the history of the season, I want to say that anything I’ve read in actual church history books and liturgical prayer books has not made a lick of sense compared to the plain English of a Wikipedia page, so, if you want more information, bite the bullet and read the Wikipedia page before you find original sources. You’ll thank me later.
Over the next seven weeks, I’ll write more about the history and practices of Lent, but for now I’ll give you some quick information about Ash Wednesday.
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday is the Wednesday that begins the season of Lent. Believers will usually be ushered into the season through a church service and will leave with a cross made of ashes on their forehead. I’ve read that the palm leaves of last year’s Palm Sunday are usually kept to be burned and that is the ash that is used. One of the reasons I’m studying and participating in these traditions this year is just for the symbolism. The symbol of the cross which means so much pain and suffering for the person who loves us the most smeared across our foreheads with the burned palm leaves from Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter Sunday which remembers the day Christ entered Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover with his disciples before he was crucified. It is called Palm Sunday because the disciples and the crowd in Jerusalem laid palm branches down in front of Jesus as he entered the city. They praised him as sent from God. Then the next week they called for his crucifixion. The account is found in Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, and John 12. What a reminder of the fatality of man’s efforts: the very palms we lay down in praise and reverence burned for the ash to create the cross.
Ashes are widely used in the Bible to signify repentance and sorrow. This practice continued on into the early church and through the English church. After the reformation, ashes were considered too much of a vain show instead of the penitence it used to be. Receiving the ashes is “simply a vivid and tangible reminder of our sinfulness, our mortality, and our utter dependence upon the grace of God and the power of Christ’s resurrection.” (Faithward.org)
Here’s some more information: https://www.faithward.org/ash-wednesday-worship-service-ideas/
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